act

Key backs the bully, loses a good minister

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:00 am, August 19th, 2010 - 24 comments

John Key allowed one of the ministers he appointed to be bullied out of her job and replaced by a man chosen by Rodney Hide, and he didn’t even ask Hide why. As more details emerge, it looks like Hide is the one in the wrong. Will Key now discipline Hide and invite Roy, who has been acclaimed as a good minister in a bad bunch, back on board? Not likely. The guy’s barely awake these days.

An Authoritarian Act

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 2:52 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 14 comments

So Rodney can’t keep 4 other people on side. The liberal and authoritarian split in Act has had its blood-letting and the authoritarians have won. Where will the neo-liberal idealogues go? And how will Epsom react to this change in philosophy in a year’s time?

Final ACT for Roy?

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:19 am, August 17th, 2010 - 35 comments

Infighting within ACT seems to have come to a head, and pundits are predicting that Heather Roy will be sacked today, with John Boscawen to replace her as deputy. Will Roy split off and form a new party of the right? Fight ACT for that 1.5% of the vote?

Climate change deaths

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:34 am, June 2nd, 2010 - 26 comments

Worldwide it is the hottest Jan-Feb-March-April on record. Heat waves have already killed tens of thousands in the last few years. In India 2010 is believed to be the hottest summer in the country since records began in the late 1800s, and hundreds are dead. While ACT and Federated Farmers bitch and moan about the costs of the ETS, the deaths will keep coming.

Two faced too far

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:01 am, April 27th, 2010 - 47 comments

John Key is a two faced politician. He frequently says different things to different audiences. In the case of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Key may have taken this duplicitous tactic too far, setting two large bodies of public opinion on a collision course…

Humour of the week

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:01 pm, April 6th, 2010 - 10 comments

David Slack says..

“Qantas passenger threatened to bring down flight with the power of his mind. Ten bucks says he’s wearing an ACT T-shirt”

But it made me laugh after a hard weekend. as it perfectly reflects that way I feel about the breed.

More Act infighting

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 3:03 pm, March 27th, 2010 - 78 comments

It’s getting nasty in the ACT party. Rodney Hide can’t last as leader. Heather Roy, Roger Douglas, and John Boscawen each have factions backing them to replace him. Disintegration is a real possibility. The consequence of ACT’s straying from it’s economically and socially liberal roots under Douglas and Prebble to reactionism under the nihilist Hide. If a collapse does take place, Key may have to call an early election.

What’s a decade between friends?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:09 am, March 14th, 2010 - 29 comments

Deborah Coddington writes:
“In 1994, not long after Rodney Hide became leader of Act,…”
Umm, Hide became leader in 2004. To be fair, the rest of Coddington’s piece offers a pretty good examination of Act’s fundamental problems.

Where are Hide & Key on Garrett comments?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:28 pm, March 4th, 2010 - 99 comments

Colin Espiner reports that Rodney Hide has gone into his shell as outrage over David Garrett’s appalling sterilisation comments builds. Since Irish broke the story of Garrett’s comments yesterday, it has spread like wildfire through the blogosphere and the msm. And nowhere will you find a reaction from anyone in ACT or from their coalition partners.

Garrett: Sterilise the poor

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 2:59 pm, March 3rd, 2010 - 98 comments

ACT MP David Garret has called for a programme to sterilise the “likes” of Chris Kahui and Maxine King. By which we can only assume he means poor, brown, people. Sack him.

ACT’s ugly racist face exposed

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:51 pm, February 28th, 2010 - 57 comments

Former ACT Deputy Leader Muriel Newman has launched into a racist tirade that amounts to ‘bloody bludging Maoris’. Incredibly, Rodney Hide agrees, saying that Maori have a culture of dependency. To ACT, poverty isn’t the result of an unequal and unfair economic system, it’s a lifestyle choice. They say Maori are morally deficient and to blame for their poverty.

Out with three strikes

Written By: r0b - Date published: 3:30 pm, February 23rd, 2010 - 31 comments

The National / ACT “three strikes” policy on violent crime sentencing is the worst kind of law.

It has been thoroughly condemned by the Justice Ministry, who were blocked from giving advice to select committee.

How Act’s failed coup went down

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 9:49 am, January 7th, 2010 - 39 comments

Spotted on Facebook:

Capitalism in its wonderful natural form.

Written By: lprent - Date published: 7:55 pm, December 7th, 2009 - 29 comments

Following on from our report earlier this year about ideal places for libertarians to go, it appears that we are now seeing capitalism in its wonderful Ayn Rand style libertarian idealized form. Somali ‘maritime companies” have setup a stock exchange to help incubate free enterprise in its natural form. From Reuters we have this report. […]

Rodney puts on his best chastened little boy voice

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 12:04 am, November 9th, 2009 - 28 comments

You just have to listen to this. After “solid reflection” Rodney has realized that despite being adamant for several days that he’d done no wrong, he now understands that no, he has done wrong and has already returned the cash to the government coffers. Did it last week apparently, which is a bid odd in […]